User Profiles on Windows XP are not compatible with Windows 7. The default folder for user profiles in Windows XP is X:\Documents and Settings and X:\Users in Windows XP. If you upgrade your Windows XP to Windows 7 the user profiles are not migrated automatically. You need to use a tool called USMT to migrate. The USMT version must be 4.0 and ships with Windows WAIK for Windows 7. This article explains how you can migrate your documents, profiles and application to Windows 7.
Steps:
- Download WAIK for Windows 7 from the below URL
- http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=696DD665-9F76-4177-A811-39C26D3B3B34&displaylang=en
- Install Windows WAIK on a computer running Windows 7
- Upgrade your Windows XP (Perform an in-place upgrade of Windows 7)
- Go to the following location where you have installed Windows WAIK
- C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\USMT
- Copy USMT folder to C:\Windows\USMT on Windows 7 and then run the following commands to migrate user settings:
ScanState command:
C:\Windows\USMT\scanstate.exe c:\USMT /v:13 /o /c /hardlink /nocompress /efs:hardlink /i:MigApp.xml /i:MigDocs.xml /offlineWinDir:c:\windows.old\windows
LoadState command:
C:\Windows\USMT\loadstate.exe c:\USMT /v:13 /c /lac /lae /i:migapp.xml /i:migdocs.xml /sf /hardlink /nocompress
That's it.
The first command (ScanState command) scans your computer to gather information from C:\Windows.old. This folder contains the Windows XP installation and user profile settings.
The second command (LoadState command) migrates the captured settings to Windows 7.